WEEKLY WHINE

The answer to grammar

As you know, we here at GoobNet have solved a great many conundrums. We have solved even more conundra.

Grammar, in particular, has benefitted from our attention. Let us now review some of the controversies that once plagued scholars through the ages, along with our own ruling on each matter as specified in the GoobNet Style Manual.

STRAND PREPOSITIONS

As Winston Churchill famously said of someone who corrected him on this rule: “That is precisely the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.”

The GoobNet Style Manual says yes.

PUNCTUATION INSIDE QUOTATION MARKS

Quotations are a tricky business: there is an outer sentence containing the quotation, and often the quotation itself contains one or more sentences. Both the outer and inner sentences have their own punctuation, so we should be careful about which sentence is being punctuated.

If a fragment is being quoted, there should obviously be no punctuation inside the quotation marks. If a complete sentence is being quoted, both sentences should get their own punctuation marks on the appropriate sides of the quotation marks, except that if the inner punctuation mark is a period, it should be omitted. If multiple sentences are being quoted, the first ones must be punctuated within the quotation marks, so the last one should be as well.

Examples:

• The box smelled like a substance that is commonly referred to as “shit”.
• Remember when Wen said, “Why are we leaving this box around in the office?”?
• And then didn’t Gaby say, “Well, I’m not taking it out to the dumpster”?
• Yes, and after that, Wen asked, “Who put this fucking thing here in the first place?”.
• And then Jhonny replied, “I know! What the fuck?”

The GoobNet Style Manual says only when quoting multiple sentences, or when quoting a single sentence that doesn’t end with a period.

PREDICATE NOMINATIVE

Strict grammar rules hold that when a linking verb is used, a pronoun used in the predicate should be in the nominative case rather than the objective case. This, of course, is total bullshit. Compare “it’s he” to “it’s him”, or “the person at the door was I” to “the person at the door was me”.

The GoobNet Style Manual says no.

‘ALRIGHT’ INSTEAD OF ‘ALL RIGHT’

Why would anyone want to do this?

The GoobNet Style Manual says no.

SUBJUNCTIVE

The GoobNet Style Manual says, “We did a whole huge thing on this! Weren’t you paying attention?”

DOUBLE NEGATIVE

In the English language, there ain’t no reason to use no double negatives.

The GoobNet Style Manual says no.

SINGULAR ‘THEY’

How many times have you said, “Hey, did somebody leave their keys?”? Did you even consider saying “Hey, did somebody leave her keys?” or “Hey, did somebody leave his keys?” instead?

And if you did, was it because the keys were left in the men’s or women’s room?

The GoobNet Style Manual says yes.

‘LESS’ INSTEAD OF ‘FEWER’

No less an authority than “Weird Al” Yankovic has insisted that the word “less” should be used only to compare noncountable quantities, and that “fewer” should be used instead for countable quantities. We expect you want us to describe the < symbol as the “fewer than” sign, too.

The fact is, “fewer than ten items” is no better or worse than “less than ten items”. They both make perfect sense: from a mathematical standpoint, six is both “less than” ten and “fewer than” ten.

The GoobNet Style Manual says yes.